11.4.09
We woke up this morning, grabbed some breakfast and went to the union. We had an orientation with some Vietnamese students that will serve as our translators for the day while we are doing the $100 solution. We basically just sat around. Since I am a bus leader, I passed around the sign in sheet.
Once the students got back from their tour of the ship, Aleks and Colby gave a presentation about the $100 solution and basically talked about what we are going to be doing today and the history of the $100 solution.
We loaded onto the bus and drove 45 minutes to the YMCA. We were welcomed with a chat with the director and he gave a 141 slide powerpoint. When he finished, we had lunch. We all sat at tables of about 7 and lunch was delicious. They just kept bringing us more food. It was funny watching Mackenzie eat with chopsticks. I tried to teach her, but it didn’t really help.
After lunch, Paulo and Olivia got up and did a presentation about American culture with the help of our translators. Then Mackenzie, Maria, James, Paulo and Olivia all did the Thriller dance for all the girls that are at the YMCA. They are there because they work as seamstresses and sew school uniforms. The money they make doing that they send back to their families. They loved the dance and wanted an encore. We didn’t really prepare for that so Paulo got a beat working and did some break dancing. Then as in a response, one of the girls got up and sang a Vietnamese song. It was so pretty even though I had no idea what she was saying. Then they wanted to hear an American song. Joey saved the day by getting up and singing Wagon Wheel. Carly, Bobbi-Lee and I proudly sang along. They loved it.
Then it turned out that the orphanage was a lot farther from the YMCA, so Dr. Strenecky said we had the option to either stay at the YMCA and do a $100 solution there or go to the orphanage as planned. Mackenzie and I decided to stay at the YMCA because we wanted to get back earlier so we could have more time in Ho Chi Minh.
After the groups split up, which was really stressful because I had to get a list of who was going and who was staying and then there wasn’t enough room in the van so some people couldn’t go, but then they just decided to take the bus so everyone could go. It was just confusing. After they left, we got a tour of the facilities and got to speak with some of the girl who work there. It was amazing seeing how quickly they can sew. After we got the tour, we had a question answer session with the director and then it was time for the $100 solution. We asked what he wanted and he said training. He believed that the girls needed more training because the work that they do at the Y is very temporary, but when they leave they don’t have a skill. Yes, they can sew, but it is not good enough to be a tailor so they are kind of in limbo. Somehow, we got off on a tangent about HIV/AIDS education and a library. It was the most frustrating 3 hours. The whole point of the $100 solution is asking what THEY want and not doing what WE think they need. He said training so why are we talking about HIV/AIDS education? I spoke with Dr. Strenecky and I still really didn’t get a straight answer. All he said was that I would really like the solution. Well great.
What we ended up with was that we would send one girl to get tailor training and then they could come back and train the other girls. Well then if we just picked one girl that would cause tension between the others. Then we thought about just getting them a machine that they could practice on because the ones they use to sew the uniforms are different than what they use as a tailor. But then how would they get money to buy supplies to practice because they send all their money back to their families. It just seemed like whatever we came up with, it would just not work out. In the end, we just gave them $100 with the promise of coming back and doing another solution. I really felt like it was a complete waste of a day. I think the reason we had such an issue is because there was no apparent need. Everything they needed was long term.
After venting out my frustration and getting back to the ship, we had dinner, grabbed our laptops and went to the market. I bought entirely way too much stuff. We then hit up Tutti Frutti, a local ice cream place and used their free internet to skype.
We headed back to the ship (while on the way back I was walking and stepped on a HUGE bug) I bought more DVDs and got on the ship. Once I was back in my cabin, I packed for Cambodia and watched America’s Next Top Model.